A Note from the Editor

The psychedelics field’s busy start to 2026 continued this week.

On Monday, MindMed unveiled a full overhaul of its brand, including a new name: Definium Therapeutics. In doing so, it became the second Phase 3 psychedelic drug developer to rebrand this year, after Cybin became Helus Pharma last week.

The companies are presumably hoping to distance themselves from their ‘shroom stocks’ vintage, with names like MindMed and Cybin perhaps indelibly associated with a 2021 ‘shroom boom’ that was driven in part by frothy markets and retail investor excitement. That era was replete with the likes of Kevin O’Leary, r/wallstreetbets analyses and, in the case of Cybin, some questionable stock promotion efforts.

Definium says its name is a combination of the Latin ‘definio’ and ‘infinitum’, literally meaning ‘to bound’ and ‘infinite’, respectively. Perhaps it reflects an ambition to sound equal parts transformative and nondescript, limitless but in a limited, safe kind of way.

Speaking of safety, U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) Director Nora Volkow said last year that ibogaine is unlikely to ever receive approval for opioid addiction due to its cardiac toxicity, throwing cold water on a surge of interest in the drug that revved up in 2025 and continues to mount today.

But this week, Volkow shared an article on ‘Nora’s Blog’, which lives on the NIDA website, that asks: “Could psychedelics harness neuroplasticity to treat addiction and other mental illness?”

In it, the NIDA Director concludes that “[h]arnessing the brain’s natural plasticity in effecting therapeutic gains is an intuitively obvious avenue for drug development including the development of psychedelics as therapeutics”, adding that basic research might deliver value beyond new treatments, too. “The profoundly meaningful experiences some people report following use of psychedelics could give neuroscientists valuable insights into meaning-making and the ability of the brain to change in a healthy direction after addiction or trauma”, she went on.

Under Volkow, NIDA has funded trials on psilocybin for smoking cessation, psilocybin and ketamine in the treatment of opioid use disorder, and ketamine for stimulant use disorder; so it’s not as though Volkow has blocked such work via the Institute. But it is curious that the Director chose to pen this particular blog entry, which serves as a call for further research into psychedelics as therapeutics and provides a sketch of that research agenda, now.

Also on the research and drug development front, Reunion Neuroscience announced this week that it expects to conduct just one Phase 3 trial to support the approval of its 4-OH-DiPT candidate in postpartum depression. That comes after FDA signalled a shift toward expecting just one Phase 3 by default late last year. We shouldn’t expect every psychedelic drug developer to follow this path, however, with factors like target indications and a drug’s profile coming into play.

On the state front, New Jersey could fund psilocybin research via S2283, which passed the Senate earlier this week. The Act would establish a psilocybin research pilot program and fund it to the tune of $6M. It has now passed both chambers with convincing margins and sits on Governor Phil Murphy’s (D) desk awaiting a signature.

After a busy start to the week, the second half of the work week saw flashy headlines announce that former Senator Kyrsten Sinema is the subject of a lawsuit filed by the ex-wife of one of her staffers, Matthew Ammel. In a complaint that has now been transferred to federal court, Ammel’s ex-wife accuses Sinema of breaking up their marriage.

While, on the face of it, the story has little to do with psychedelics, the suit alleges that Sinema, a licensed clinical social worker, asked Ammel to bring MDMA on a work trip, where she apparently intended to “guide him through a psychedelic experience”.

Indeed, Sinema is an outspoken psychedelics advocate, particularly on the topic of ibogaine. She became interested in advocating for ibogaine, she told me last summer, after Ammel went to Mexico to take the drug and found it beneficial. But, as we have covered in these pages, some in the field have been keen to distance themselves from Sinema, as the former Democrat-turned-Independent politician was already controversial. Some tell me that she inserted herself as a spokesperson for the field, while in other cases, it does appear that she has been welcomed in, especially in some corners of the ibogaine advocacy push.

More: Last summer, I had a somewhat spiky interview with Sinema, who attended Psychedelic Science in Denver with Ammel and a colleague from Hogan Lovells. Later, in a Bulletin, I asked: “What is Kyrsten Sinema Selling?”

Ammel is facing legal troubles, too, after he allegedly threatened his rental property manager last November and was involuntarily committed to a hospital. There, he is accused of attempting to strangle a member of the hospital staff. He was taken to jail on felony charges and released on a $10,000 bond, with a hearing scheduled for the end of January.

It appears that Ammel has been in Gabon, the Central African country, this week taking part in the International Conference on Iboga and Ibogaine, which was co-organised by Americans for Ibogaine.

“Gabon is the ancestral home of iboga”, a statement by Americans for Ibogaine CEO Bryan Hubbard following the closing of the conference reads, “and we deeply value the conversations grounded in cultural respect, environmental stewardship, and science.”

It’s not clear that Sinema shares that view. When I was sitting with Sinema, Ammel, and their law firm colleague in Denver last summer, I asked the former Senator about her thoughts on the role of traditional knowledge-holders like certain groups in Gabon. The Indigenous perspective, she told me bluntly, “is not my problem”.

In that same interview, Sinema told me: “So, because you’re British and you don’t know me, one thing I will tell you is, I am well known for having no drama. I do not engage in drama.” But it certainly looks like the drama has found its way to Sinema, who is facing a fresh bout of media attention following the surfacing of the lawsuit. In Salt Lake City on Friday, hecklers disrupted Sinema’s conversation with Utah Governor Spencer Cox about… disruption.

Tabloids aside, here at Psychedelic Alpha, our 2025 Year in Review shifts to focusing on perspectives from across the field. To that end, we published a Views from the Field piece where several experts share what they’re excited and concerned about for 2026, and an open question they hope to get more clarity on.

Elsewhere, we published an Op-Ed from Healing Advocacy Fund Executive Director Taylor West on ‘what state psychedelics programs are teaching us’, and a Guest Article by Monica Schweickle on how Australia’s ‘psychedelic experiment’ is panning out.

UBC also published a brief interview I did with them before the holidays. We spoke about why I founded Psychedelic Alpha nearly six years ago, how we aim to act as a counterbalance to both stigma and hype, what I’m expecting to see in psychedelics this year, and more.

This was a slightly longer Editor’s note than usual. If you enjoyed it and would like much, much more analysis and news, consider subscribing to Pα+ to receive all our content, including our flagship Bulletins.

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Josh Hardman
Founder & Editor